Bumgarner had a better K/9, better BB/9, has a much higher GB%, gives up less contact, gets more swings and misses, throws harder, and is almost 5 years younger. The only things that led to Kennedy having a better year last year was a BABIP 52 points lower than bumgarner and a LOB% 7% higher than bumgarner. both of them probably got a little lucky on the HR ball, but i'd expect kennedy to regress more because of the park he pitches in compared to bumgarner. I'd much rather have Bumgarner on my team for 2012 and beyond.

I'd probably take Strasburg over Kennedy too, just for the huge upside he provides. even if he gets shut down early, the quality of his innings should make up for the difference. I could see an argument for strasburg in leagues without an inning cap, but in IP max leagues i don't even think it's close.

I think it's more of people being very high on Bumgarner and Strasburg than low on Kennedy.

People under value those who may not get 200IP or even 170IP....if a player is going to give you 160 elite IP I'll take that every time because the stats don't just stop there...if the player gets hurt or gets shut down then you can fill in with a reliever, another starter or if you have a deep staff then just someone you were generally spot starting can fill in the remaining 30,40 or 50IP that your main guy isn't giving you....especially so in H2H leagues

There were reasons why guys like Harden/Bedard were still getting drafted even though they may only get you 100-120IP and thats because the IP they did give were elite or close to it and you could then mix in the needed spot start or reliever to fill the rest of the innings they weren't giving you.

I'll take an elite 150IP from someone and find 70IP more from somewhere else than a mediocore 220 from 1 guy. Not saying Kennedy is mediocore...just the general thought process of it.

Bumgarner and Kennedy should be about equal in 2012. ERA and Ks should go to Bumgarner, but the Giants' horrible offense will limit his Wins. WHIP is a toss-up. I'd lean towards Bumgarner because of the unpredictability of run support, but was so frustrated with Matt Cain last year that I'm hesitant to take starting pitchers on teams that can't score runs. Even accounting for it in their value, it's so damn stressful to see them miss out on wins when they give up 2 or less runs.

J35J wrote:People under value those who may not get 200IP or even 170IP....if a player is going to give you 160 elite IP I'll take that every time because the stats don't just stop there...if the player gets hurt or gets shut down then you can fill in with a reliever, another starter or if you have a deep staff then just someone you were generally spot starting can fill in the remaining 30,40 or 50IP that your main guy isn't giving you....especially so in H2H leagues

There were reasons why guys like Harden/Bedard were still getting drafted even though they may only get you 100-120IP and thats because the IP they did give were elite or close to it and you could then mix in the needed spot start or reliever to fill the rest of the innings they weren't giving you.

In theory, this looks to be true and the correct way to go about handling SP who have an innings cap (whether that is due to injury or being shut down). I can see little to no problem with this type of approach in standard, run of the mill leagues.

But what about more in depth leagues? Or leagues that use Holds or just SP/RP spots?

In these instances, it is going to be much harder to find a good RP to complement your lower IP starter. Especially true in a league that uses Holds. All of the good RP will most likely be on the roster of some other team. In these types of scenarios, I find it very doubtful that most people can simply pick up a Kenly Jansen type and use him when Strasburg is shut down or when Bedard gets injured.

I believe the stats for an average RP last year were somewhere in the ballpark of a 3.95 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and about 6 Ks / 9 IP.

And unless your starter goes on the DL (like Bedard), you actually have to drop someone to put in that RP. In a one year league, you can obviously drop said SP and grab an average RP. But once this happens, you aren't going to get the remaining 30-60 IP from any reliever in 1 to 1.5 months of a season (once the starter is shut down). You might get 20 IP if the RP is insanely overworked. You're more apt to get 10-15 innings over roughly a month.

It is true that you could use spot starters, but then again that assumes a shallow league. In a deeper league (or a league that runs multiple streaming managers) your options for adding another SP are limited. And in these cases, picking a good SP to add (or to stream) is a gamble. If that SP blows up, he helps to destroy the stats that your elite SP accumulated.

bigh0rt wrote:Finally, people are very jaded on pitchers who have tremendous years like Kennedy did in 2012 'out of the blue', as many perceive it to be. His ERA dropped nearly a full run from 2010 to 2011 and his FIP dropped more than a full run. People don't want to fall prey to the outlier year and get bitten if he returns to being a mid-3 ERA guy in 2012, so they're cautious.

This is my thought. I am probably one of the people you are talking about when it comes to taking Strasburg over Kennedy. It isn't that I don't like Kennedy, he just hasn't shown me enough. He had an outstanding year but i really don't know why or see it coming and I typically don't like that. I have seen too many pitchers have one outstanding year and then never get close to that level again (I could give you quite a list if you want me too).

Particularly Strasburg just has so much upside. There is very few SP that has the makeup he has and can be as good as he could be. Yes maybe he will be on a innings cap but when he pitches he will give you top of the rotation stuff and I can find someone to fill in for him later. Hopefully I will have found a SP off the WW that will help my by the end of the season.

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."- Douglas Adams

I think the biggest reasons Strasburg and Bumgarner are favored over Kennedy are1) most people around here play in keeper/dynasty leagues2) everyone loves to project what young and relatively inexperienced pitchers can "become". Nobody thinks a 27 year old is going to drastically improve. Everyone thinks their favorite 22 year old could take a step forward and become the next CYA winner.

fwiw put me in the camp that thinks both Strasburg and Bumgarner have better 2012's (and '13s, 14's, etc) than Kennedy.I would draft both guys before Kennedy, in both keepers and redrafts.

For me it has nothing to do with age. Strasburg and Bumgarner are already better than Kennedy. ERA, and by extension Wins, randomly fluctuate a huge amount based on order of events, BABIP, luck, etc. To expect Kennedy to outperform his peripherals that significantly again is setting yourself up for disappointment. As for Strasburg, he's so dominant that he could probably be amongst the top pitchers in the league even with a 160 IP cap.

Skin Blues wrote:For me it has nothing to do with age. Strasburg and Bumgarner are already better than Kennedy. ERA, and by extension Wins, randomly fluctuate a huge amount based on order of events, BABIP, luck, etc. To expect Kennedy to outperform his peripherals that significantly again is setting yourself up for disappointment. As for Strasburg, he's so dominant that he could probably be amongst the top pitchers in the league even with a 160 IP cap.